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Tag Archives: Mark Leno

Outing Rabbi Eger

In November 2008 Rabbi Eger was named one of the FORWARD FIFTY by the national Jewish newspaper the Jewish Daily Forward as one of the 50 most influential Jewish leaders of the year along with Rahm Emmanuel, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Sarah Silverman. In 2010 Rabbi Eger was named by the Jewish Daily Forward as one of the Sisterhood 50. One of the fifty most influential women rabbis in America. Now she is listed as October 11, 2011 Coming Out Day LGBT leader.

Rabbi Denise Eger believes that activism is an important part of her rabbinate. She is now the historical leader recognized for the 2011 Coming Out Day. Mazel Tov, Rabbi Eger!

In California, we are fortunate that we have become the first state in the nation to require public schools to add lessons about our gay and trans history to social studies classes. Yet, this only happened after Governor Jerry Brown signed this landmark bill a few months ago created by LGBT Jewish leader Mark Leno (learn more).

Therefore because our LGBT history is not being taught and talked about much, the month of October has become LGBT History Month. The goal of this month is to send a consistent message about the vital importance of recognizing and exploring the role of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people in American history.

Starting in 2006, a nonprofit group called Equality Forum has promoted 1 of 31 chosen LGBT History Month Hero’s or Icons each day in October. Throughout the short history of this tradition 18 Jewish leaders have been recognized. These LGBT Jewish Icons are: Susan Sontag z”l*, Annie Leibovitz, Leonard Bernstein z”l, Larry Kramer, Lowell Selvin, Barney Frank, David Geffen, Harvey Milk z”l, Maurice Sendak, Leslie Feinberg, Suze Orman, Joan Nestle, Magnus Hirschfeld z”l, Allen Ginsberg z”l, Tony Kushner, Harvey Fierstein, Stephen Sondheim and Aaron Copland z”l.

This year marks the 6th Anniversary of this work by the Equality Forum and today is the unveiling of the 19^thJewish LGBT leader to be listed. Today, on Coming Out Day, which falls annually on October 11, Los Angeles based Rabbi Denise Eger has been chosen as the LGBT hero or icon of the day. Her bio and story can be seen here.

Mazel Tov, Rabbi Eger! Thank you for being an inspiration to so many people throughout both our Jewish and LGBT worlds!

LGBT History Month honors Ricky Martin, Wanda Sykes, Ryan Murphy, Pedro Zamora, 27 other icons (miamiherald.typepad.com)
Will you join me and pledge to go purple in support of LGBT youth? (qjew.wordpress.com)
LGBT History Month 2011 Website Launch (queerlandia.com)
Philadelphia Freedom: The Dewey’s Lunch Counter Sit-In (queerty.com)
Mayor Nutter to Kick Off Lgbt History Month (cityofphiladelphia.wordpress.com)
gays have kids too (qjew.wordpress.com)
October is LGBT history month (queeringthechurch.com)
Top 10 LGBT Websites and Blogs (qjew.wordpress.com)

A selection of the 19 LGBT Jewish icons that have been honored and recognized by Equality Forum among the 186 LGBT Icons choosen since 2006.

In 2006, Equality Forum began providing content, promotion and resources for LGBT History Month. Now, LGBT History Month celebrates the achievements of 31 lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender Icons. This is a selection of the 19 LGBT Jewish icons that have been honored and recognized by Equality Forum among the 186 LGBT Icons choosen since 2006.

* There are several traditional Jewish honorifics for the dead which are used interchangeably when naming and speaking of the deceased. The most common honorific is translated from the Hebrew into English to mean, of blessed memory. In Hebrew this honorific is written זיכרונה לברכה\ זיכרונו לברכה (Hebrew transliteration is zikhrono livrakha/zikhronah livrakha). As seen frequently on this blog the use of this honor is further abbreviated to the first two letters of the Hebrew transliteration words, z”l or the first two letters of the Hebrew wordsז״ל.

candidates

04 Nov

Rebecca Kaplan

to the lgbt jewish candidates this election season, thanks for representing! of the 20,354 votes for lgbt jewish candidates in district 8 – scott wiener takes the gig to lead the castro with 8,964 votes… yet with rafael mandelman 7,796 – 36.3% and rebecca prozan 3,594 – 16.73% the race was tough! for the sf member of the san francisco board of education race lgbt jewish candidate jamie rafaela wolfe received 14,518 votes but with 4.82% of the vote she will not be able to serve. and no one candidate for oakland mayor has yet grabbed the brass ring of 50 percent plus 1 vote so don’t give up hope for rebecca kaplan (as currently she is in a close & complicated 3rd place). plus we have of course good news with barney frank who was reelected to us congress, jared polis who retained his colorado seat for us congress and david cicilline who is now going to begin his first term in us congress as previous mayor of providence! what will happen next election season…? should we support a candidate just because they are jewish? lgbt? no, but i sure do love all the folks that ran! (and of course, thank you to the always amazing victory fund for making this happen too!)